Strangers in the Night, Playground’s famous charity event, is back on our felts as 1 of 4 multi-day events in the World Cup of Cards. This tournament is always a great opportunity to compete in a light atmosphere, shoot for some big payouts, and do your part to help people in need! The buy-in is $150 + $25, and with $65,000 guaranteed, there is enough in there to play it for the prizes, but there is another incentive: the entirety of the $25 fee goes to the Strangers in the Night charity initiative! Our Director of Charitable Initiatives, Larry Robinson, works closely with the Strangers in the Night Group, and they, in turn, help the Miriam Foundation, the West Island Women’s Shelter, and Lymphoma Canada; all great causes! Event #11 – Strangers in the Night: Day 1A – Monday January 28 at 7PM Day 1B – Tuesday January 29 at […]
Event Info
The Value of Early Satellites
All of our poker festivals are preceded by a string of satellite tournaments, giving our players a chance to get into the action for a fraction of the buy-in. These tournaments represent a great opportunity to play the bigger events, and possibly experience a tournament breakthrough. The guarantees in these satellites usually get bigger as we get closer to the target event, so how much value can these early satellites represent? The answer is: a whole lot of it! Historical Numbers The intrinsic value of a satellite does not reside in the number of guaranteed seats, but rather in the ratio of players paid, compared to their guarantee. The entries to seats awarded ratio in the early satellites can be as good as 1 in 7 players paid on average, as seen with the WSOP-C Playground last summer and the Winter Festival in January 2018, while the satellites closer to […]
The Bounty tournaments of the WCC
Of all formats presented in Playground festivals, bounty tournaments are probably the most popular. Everybody loves a bounty! There is something extremely gratifying in taking a value chip off a player that we just busted, and something very humbling in handing it over. It is the ultimate congratulatory gesture, and throwing it in the pot with a nod and some eye contact is worth a lot more than a simple: “nice hand!” But the chase is what really gets most players! The bounty hunting, the little voice in your head that becomes louder when you’re playing a pot with a player who has fewer chips than you do. The World Cup of Cards has 4 such events on the schedule. Let’s take a look at the list: Event #4: $100 + $20 + $100 6-Max 50/50 Bounty Monday January 21 The 6-Max format calls for extra-aggressive play. Bounties are sure […]
The 8-Year Anniversary weekend is around the corner!
The first MILLIONS seats will be won this weekend! Have you made your schedule? Eight years ago, on December 17, 2010, Playground Poker Club first opened its doors to the public, and after eight years of constant evolution, we are now paving the way to MILLIONS North America, our first $10,300 buy-in Main Event! MILLIONS, set to take place in May 2019, is an unbelievable milestone, and what better way to celebrate eight years of existence than to boost all of our MILLIONS Step Satellites with unbelievable guarantees across the Anniversary weekend! On the Anniversary schedule, you will find 7 events, including the Playground 200. The strong multi-day event comes back with 4 live starting flights instead of its usual 3. Players will get 4 chances to add their name to the list of qualifiers from last Sunday’s online flight. You can also find on the schedule some Short Deck, Bounty, […]
Your first STEP to becoming a Millionaire!
The $10,000 + $300 MILLIONS North America Main Event is the largest tournament on our annual calendar, and starting in December, everyone who plays live here at Playground will have a great opportunity to play their way into this global event via Steps satellites. The Step system features satellites at 3 different buy-in levels to appeal to players no matter what their bankroll or experience level. Step 1 satellites award seats into the next scheduled Step 2 satellite, which in turn awards seats to a $1,500 + $150 Step 3 satellite – and once you’re there, you’ll be playing for a $10,300 seat in the MILLIONS Main Event in May! $80 + $10: Step 1 Satellite $400 + $40: Step 2 Satellite $1,500 + $150: Step 3 Satellite Players may start with the Step 1 and play their way through all of the steps, or may choose to start directly […]
Introducing… the WCC Tag Team event!
Over the years, Tag Team events have become a staple of the Playground tournament scene. They typically appear every second Power Weekend or so, and invariably attract a huge number of players, eager to partner up to play a game that is normally a purely individual pursuit. The World Cup of Cards 2019, running from January 20 to February 6, opens with Event #1: $400 + $40 Tag Team and its $50,000 guarantee. Having proved its popularity time and again in several Power Weekends, the Tag Team format has been promoted to the World Cup of Cards. Special Tag Team Rules The first 6 levels are played individually – each team member starts with a 25,000 chip stack. Following a seating redraw after level 6, individual stacks are merged (if there are 2 left) to form the team stack and players alternate at the table from level to level. So […]
MILLIONS Online is upon us
MILLIONS Online, carrying the biggest single online MTT guarantee in history, starts this weekend on Sunday, November 25 and ends on Wednesday, December 5. This year, MILLIONS Online boasts a guarantee of 20 MILLION DOLLARS and crowns 4 MILLIONAIRES; a guaranteed $2.5M prize is reserved for 1st place! The buy-in is $5,300, but there are a number of ways to satellite your way in. For MILLIONS Online, the satellite scene is filled with amazing guarantees and some great added value, making it realistic for players of all bankrolls to play for astronomical prizes. Added Value Satellites A full-scale satellite tree. 6 buy-in levels, from $0.01 to $530. Huge numbers of added seats to every single level. A full 6-level tree grows every day from 6:55AM. Blown out added value on Sundays. $109 Phase Satellites Multiple Phase-1 satellites every day. Survive 38 levels and make the finals. Finals are held on […]
The World Cup of Cards kicks off the 2019 festival calendar!
The next full-length poker festival to come to Playground is our own World Cup of Cards, and it rolls in 2019, from January 20 to February 6, opening the new year at Playground Poker Club! The World Cup of Cards (WCC) 3rd edition will stay true to its identity and present 29 events with affordable buy-ins ranging from $110 to $1650. It is a great opportunity for players of all bankrolls to shoot for an official title, but it also presents a few events for players looking for some mid-stakes tournament action. The 18-day series, filled with fun formats, will be punctuated with 3 marquee events: $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada $1,500 + $150 WPTDeepstacks $1,000 + $100 Card Player Poker Tour (CPPT) In and around these great features, you will find a plethora of fun tournaments, with all the formats you love. The Tag Team is back with […]
Streamlined Media Release process for partypoker LIVE Events
As experienced tournament players have seen in the past, they must sign a form to acknowledge the Media Terms & Conditions before participating in an event. The Media Release is a standard element related to all modern poker tours; you can read the partypoker LIVE Media Terms & Conditions here: https://partypokerlive.com/en/media-policy. Recently, partypoker LIVE implemented a new, streamlined procedure by which players may “sign” this Media Release using their partypoker LIVE website or App. This new procedure will be mandatory for the WPT Montreal, and you can save some valuable time by simply going online or opening the App and taking care of things before you arrive at Playground. All you have to do is sign in and check the “Agree” box related to the Media Policy preference. If you already have a partypoker LIVE account, you will be prompted to update your Media Policy preference the next time you […]
The WPT Montreal is here!
The WPT Montreal is finally here! At Playground, we are extremely excited to host the WPT500, the WPT Main Tour, and the WPTDeepStacks, all grouped together in a first-of-its-kind festival, and while the WPT500 Day 1s Online have already been played (see the results here), the live portion of the festival starts Friday! Make sure to follow the action on our Event Blog, where live updates will be posted throughout the festival! The festival, kicking off the new 4-year partnership between partypoker LIVE and WPT, presents 7 official World Poker Tour Events, with combined guarantees of over $8,000,000. The Main Event has a $5000 + $300 buy-in and a cool $5,000,000 in its own guaranteed prize pool! Check out the full schedule here. Qualify on partypoker There are a number of ways to play the Main Event at a much reduced cost. partypoker has one more satellite tree on their […]
The big blind ante makes its way to Playground!
Playground is pleased to announce that partypoker LIVE has officially implemented the big blind ante. All partypoker LIVE Events around the world will move to big blind ante, and that includes the WPT Montreal that descends on Playground on October 26th. A bit of history About a year and a half ago, consolidated antes made their appearance. Aria and partypoker LIVE were among the first to use the format, and Playground followed shortly after. It spread like a wildfire but was received by most like a breath of fresh air, a much-needed reform to effectively speed up the game and allow a significant increase in hands per hour. The only question that was left was whom to ask it from? The world was divided; about half went for the button ante, and the other half went for the big blind ante. Because both formats require the same amount of chips […]
The WPT Montreal starts online this Sunday!
The WPT Montreal is finally here! This Sunday, October 21, partypoker presents the WPT500 Day 1A – Online, the first of 3 online Day 1s for Event #1 of the WPT Montreal. The event is guaranteed at $1,000,000! The WPT500 has a very accessible buy-in of $500 + $50 and presents a total of 10 starting flights, the first 3 of which are held online on partypoker: Sunday October 21 at 9:00pm – WPT500 Day 1A – Online Monday October 22 at 9:00pm – WPT500 Day 1B – Online Tuesday October 23 at 9:00pm – WPT500 Day 1C – Online A single re-entry per flight is permitted, which means that you can fire up to 6 bullets online into the tournament with the widest buy-in/guarantee ratio in the whole series. This is one Day 2 you don’t want to miss! The 7 live starting flights will be held from Friday, […]